Captures the outputs from the Third Sibthorp Seminar held by the Sibthorp Trust. The aim of the seminar was to take a critical look at the evidence for the link between ecosystems and human health and examine some of the policy implications of these links for the UK. This is a fast changing and increasingly important area, and has significant implications for the policies and practices of many sectors from health to conservation and agriculture.
The links between ecosystems and health cover a wide spectrum of issues and, to focus the discussion, the seminar concentrated on three key aspects of this broad topic: the influence of access to green spaces and nature on well-being; the current and potential future threats to human health from diseases in the wild that can be transmitted to humans; and the role of ecosystems in reducing the exposure of people to pollutants and pathogens. Within this framework the topics covered during the seminar were wide-ranging and, taken as a whole, attempt to give a broad overview of the technical and scientific disciplines that are relevant to the linkage between ecosystems and human health in a UK context. Key presentations from the seminar have been included in this book as written papers.
